Stay
by curly-sue-not-sue
Summary: Cammie runs. People follow her. The end. Not really. Post OGSY. Now on hiatus.
1. My Great Escape

**Mmmkay peeps, new story. And yes, it is a version of Gallagher Girls book 5... But don't diss me for thinking about what's gonna happen next. I know that everyone (well, mostly everyone) has tried to write a version of it, but I'll try to add some good stuff, okay? Some twists, turns, love triangles (the love triangles part is a huge, HUGE maybe-probably-not, but people seem to like those, so I'll consider throwing one in there). But yeah. So, I hope y'all enjoy.**

**Disclaimer- my brain is not smart enough to think of books such as these, so I'm gonna say that no, I didn't write the Gallagher Girls series, and yes, Ally Carter did write them. So yeah.**

***X*****  
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Chapter One

Cameron

My backpack, the only bag that I was allowing myself to take, was under my bed. In my head, I thought about all of the things that I packed, making sure for what felt like the thousandth time that I had everything that I needed- various disguises, (wigs, colored contacts, etc.) as well as money, airline tickets, clothes, a box of granola bars (a girl gets hungry on the road) and, most importantly, weapons. I had probably gone through that backpack a hundred times, making sure that I had everything, leaving behind anything that I didn't need.

Underneath the blankets and sheets of my bed, I wore what I thought would look halfway normal in daytime, yet would conceal me safely at night- grey t-shirt under black zipper hoodie with dark-wash jeans and black Converse. My hair, which I had asked Macey to do hours before, was in a tight French braid, and I swallowed my guilt once again at asking her, unsuspecting Macey, to do my hair so it would stay out of my face while I ran away from the school, from safety.

But by then, I was pretty used to getting rid of guilt.

I lay there for another hour or so, counting down the seconds until one thirty in the morning. My watch, which was completely normal and devoid of any tracking devices (I checked multiple times, considering the fact that Liz liked to spontaneously 'upgrade' things like that), buzzed when midnight hit, but it didn't matter; I already knew that I only had an hour and a half before I got out of Dodge.

When my watch buzzed at one thirty, the alarm going off in my head, telling me that it was time to put my plan into action, I listened for a second, making sure that all was well with my roommates. Their breathing was quiet and methodical, like a machine in constant motion, and I heard the tiny sounds that my roommates usually make when they're dreaming. Bex was grunting, her hands clenching and unclenching, and it wouldn't take more than one guess to know that she was probably dreaming of taking down plotting terrorists and evil dictators; Liz was mumbling something in her sleep, numbers and codes that no one else but her could understand; Macey was just lying there, a small smile on her super-model face, like she was having the kind of good dream that you don't entirely remember but it always kind of stays in your memory anyway. I knew them well enough by then to know that they were out; they wouldn't realize I was gone until morning.

I crept out of bed like a kid getting ready to peek at her Christmas presents before her parents woke up. My feet were quiet on the carpeted floor as I tip-toed across the room, my backpack surprisingly light on my shoulder. It seemed like that phase of my escape was done, all clear, but still, I had to take extra precautions.

I reached into my pocket, swallowing even more guilt, and quietly pressed an extra-strength Napotine patch on each of their foreheads. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, the kind of thing that would make the betrayal in their eyes even more acute, but it was necessary. Or so I told myself.

I tip-toed to the door and opened it slowly. I held my breath, hoping that the maintenance guys had recently oiled the ancient hinges.

They had, thankfully.

I shut the door behind me quietly, pressing my back against the closed door as the camera at the end of the hall made its sweep. I counted to ten, which is how long the cameras looked in one place at once, and sprinted to the end of the hall, counting down how much time I had in my head before the camera would turn my way and blow my mission. I made it to the other hall at three seconds before the camera would make its dangerous sweep and pressed against another door as the camera at the end of _that_ hall made its sweep. I did the same thing- counting to ten then sprinting when I could- all throughout the winding halls of my school, hoping and praying that the patterns it had taken me a week to memorize would stay the same; the last thing I needed then was a surprise.

Thankfully, around the actual suites, there were no actual human guards, so I was able to maneuver my way around without any cameras or people noticing me. But then came the next phase in my escape plan; the dumbwaiter.

At the Gallagher Academy, one of the most ancient buildings in Roseville Virginia, there were shafts and tunnels, so many of them that there were probably dozens that I hadn't had a chance to discover. However, the semester before, my school had done what it was supposed to do; protect its students from enemies. Sadly though, in my case, that meant keeping me inside the school, which meant eliminating any and all ways of my escaping. The dumbwaiter, however, was the one thing that they hadn't touched. They assumed, I guess, that it wasn't big or useful enough for me to use while escaping the confines of my school.

The security staff underestimated me once again, however, because that was my ticket out.

The junior common was, back in the old days when Gilly Gallagher herself still roamed the halls and people actually had use for a dumbwaiter, a dining room for Gilly and her closest guests; thus, this was why there was a dumbwaiter there leading down to the kitchen.

It had taken me a week to plan my escape. I had had to memorize dozens of camera patterns, the best times to do everything (the dead of night was, and always will be, the best time of day to covertly escape a high security building) and the actual ways I would get around. I had wandered the school endlessly, pretending to just be restless and troubled while I was really looking for passageways that the security staff had missed. I had visited all of my favorite passageways, which were, by then, blocked by extra walls and grandfather clocks and anything else they could think of, and had gone through the map of Gallagher in my head again and again, thinking, wondering, hoping, that they had missed something. Then, on one night when I felt extra sleepless, I had sat in the common room, thinking about what to do while the entire team of guards watched me through cameras, wondering what I was going to do next. My eyes had wandered through the room in the dark a thousand times, thinking about a way out of the school, but then they fell upon what I had been hoping for; a little crack in the wall across the room, straight and small, which was one side of the door that led to the dumbwaiter, which led to the kitchen.

I had found my way out.

"Okay, here we go," I murmured as I tip-toed into the junior common room, going straight to the dumbwaiter shaft door. I had hacked into the security system earlier (a job that would have taken Liz an hour but took me about two days) and made sure that the cameras were completely turned off. It was the only place I actually allowed myself to turn off the cameras, because if I turned them all off, the security staff would get suspicious. As it was, I considered it a huge miracle that I hadn't been caught yet.

I stuffed my bag onto the small platform first, then grabbed the rope and squeezed myself onto the creaky, rotting wood, praying that it wouldn't crack and splinter and leave me nothing to support myself on but air. The wood, which was, by then, over a hundred years old, groaned under my weight, but didn't break. The rope in my hands pulled tight, and I sighed in relief as I slowly let myself down the cramped shaft, dust prickling my nose and I lowered myself lower and lower, closer and closer to the kitchen. To freedom.

For three tense, heart-stopping minuets, I slowly lowered myself through floor after floor. Secrets and dust hung heavy around me, the total blackness seeming to swallow me completely. To pass the time, I listened for any sign of the school suspecting my escape, and wondered how many huge, creepy, crawly things had made their homes in that shaft (I felt spider web after spider web being broken as I went down, but didn't bother to count how many there were).

Finally, I felt myself land on the bottom of the shaft, solid ground finally beneath my feet. I pressed my palm against the door, glad that it easily opened into the kitchen. I climbed out and slung my bag over my shoulder. The kitchen was huge and dark, full of ovens and refrigerators that buzzed and moaned like hulking, sleeping monsters. For a second, while I stood there in that dark space, I felt the old childhood fear of darkness creeping in, my mind wandering to those bad nightmares where those imaginary monsters were so much more than imaginary. But as I stood there, a seventeen year old girl who had seen more things than any seventeen year old girl should, I knew that monsters weren't just those creepy, fuzzy things you imagine in your closet; they are people, evil people, who try to hurt you and are always watching you, their eyes cold and hungry, like a predators'. I almost felt them, right then; eyes on me, like creeping, crawling bugs on my skin.

I shook my head, clearing my head of these thoughts, and reached into my jacket pocket, pulling out a tiny flashlight that Grandpa Morgan had given me years before. I turned it on, telling myself that I was being stupid, that the only things in the kitchen were shiny and pristine cooking appliances, but, instead, saw that I wasn't alone.

Standing in front of me, a sadistic smirk plastered on his shadow-ridden face, was Zachary Goode himself.

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**Cliff-hanger! *cue evil laugh and scary background music*  
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**I love writing. It makes me feel so powerful. :)**

**Anyways, what did you think, guys? I know that it was kind of a short chapter, but when I was finished with this first chapter, it was so ridiculously long that I needed to make it into two chapters instead of one. So yeah. I hope you all liked it! As of right now, I'll probably post the second chapter tomorrow, and then we'll just see where we go from there. Truthfully, I don't actually have any other chapters besides the first one written (*nervous smile*) but I have outlines for many of them, something that I rarely do but need to do do every single time I write a story, so I hope that makes things go faster.**

**So, review? Please?**


	2. My Long Goodbye

**Here it is. Chapter two. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer-**

**Ally Carter- Madeline, you better not be claiming this story as yours! Are you?**

**Me- No Ally, I swear I'm not! I'm only just a huge fan and really want to know what happens in the next book!**

**Ally Carter- Well, you can't. It's not allowed.**

**Me- I know. So that's why I'm writing this story. I'm just kind of guessing what will happen... Okay?  
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**Ally Carter- Okay.**

***X***

Chapter Two

Cameron

I am not a usually screamer. Oh sure, I have screamed during one of my classes many horror movie marathons (they especially enjoy ones where people are cut up like a nice, juicy piece of steak- I hope that none of them have the bear the weight of national security on their shoulders one day) and I've screamed on roller coasters, but that's about it. Otherwise, I am generally able to keep those really strong emotions inside, which is where they belong.

But when I saw Zach standing there, completely unexpected and unwanted, I let out a little squeal. I would have screamed bloody murder had it not been for the fact that, if I had screamed, I would have alerted the entire school, which would then lead to the full force of the Gallagher Academy's defense systems bearing down on me and the boy in front of me.

After I recovered from about the closest call I've ever had to having a heart attack (literally, my heart was beating a million miles a minute) I looked up to the boy who held a flashlight in one hand, a duffel bag in the other.

I expected him to be angry, to start yelling (or, at least, hissing) at me and saying how stupid I was being. But for about the millionth time in the year and a half I had known him, Zachary Good surprised me.

"Gallagher Girl, you can't get rid of me that easily."

I took a deep breath, picking up my backpack (which, in my panic, I had dropped) and slung it over my shoulder, giving him my best death-glare.

"Geez Zach, thanks for trying to kill me." I hissed, keeping my voice quiet but venomous. "I _totally_ needed to be scared shitless right then."

He smiled, but it was grim and sad and barely there, the only kind of smile I had seen on his handsome face during those last weeks of junior year. "Anytime, Gallagher Girl."

I rolled my eyes, turning away from him towards the door that led me outside. But before I even started for it, I heard him drop his bag and felt him put a strong, calloused hand on my shoulder. I stopped, but only because his grip was so tight that I didn't have any choice but to stay.

"Zach, let me go."

For seventeen tense seconds, he didn't say anything; he just stood there, his hand on my shoulder, flashlight pointed to the ground.

Finally, he whispered, "Gallagher Girl, I thought I could go with you."

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, but it was useless. The little bit of anger that had started from the second I saw him stand there had grown and expanded, and by then I was so enraged at him that the only reason I didn't punch him in the face was because I was trying to run away and the possible scuffled that would follow would make noise, which meant people hearing, which meant... Well, I could only imagine what it would be like. Let me tell you, it wouldn't be pretty.

So instead of punching him, I spun around to face him, his facial expression only barely shifting to show surprise.

"What made you think you could go with me, Zach? The fact that you asked me to run away with you? Did you really think that that would automatically make you allowed to go on this road trip with me, regardless of whether I told you that you could or not? Get this straight Blackthorne Boy- I don't want you to come with me."

I took a breath, preparing myself to say more. But I didn't. I had said enough.

In the darkness, I watched Zach, and his face stayed the same way it usually was- annoyingly stoic. Only his dark eyes held any emotion, which was simply this- hurt.

I had hurt Zach Goode.

Let me tell you, it didn't feel as good as I thought it would.

After that, it was like the fire inside me- the anger, the frustration, and everything else that had been building inside of me for weeks- just sagged and disappeared, like a ghost that didn't feel like haunting anybody anymore. I felt like I had deflated.

The kitchen was silent, except for the ever-present buzzing of the ovens and refrigerators. As Zach and I looked at each other, a tense, silent staring contest that neither of us had ever planned on entering in, the air seemed to become thicker and thicker, the tension hanging all around us.

I couldn't take it anymore. So I did something that made the spy in me cringe, but the girl in me breathe a sigh of relief- I apologized.

"Look, Zach, I'm sorry. I just..."

I drifted off, my words hanging in the air, cutting the tension at least a little bit. I ran a hand over my hair, wishing that it wasn't braided so tightly to my head, wishing that it wasn't so obvious that I was leaving for a long time.

Zach shoved his free hand into his pocket, the flashlight still facing the ground. Then he looked up at me, his face sad, his eyes understanding. Before I knew what was happening, he was hugging me, his arms safe and warm. I closed my eyes, letting out a shuttering breath, and wished that it didn't have to be over so soon.

I wished, in that second, that he could go with me. I really did. But as he pulled back from me and bent his head to kiss me, I remembered that the worst thing a spy can do is get comfortable, and I knew that's what would happen if he came; I would be running away from the danger, sure, but with a boy who makes me forget things- important things- all too easily. I knew that if he came with me, we would both be careless and, even if the Circle of Cavan didn't want to kill either of us, someone would end up getting hurt anyway. Someone always did.

So I savored that kiss as much as I could as I stood there in Zach's arms, the unsaid words crushing both of us. It was a sweet moment, but it was desperate, the kind of moment, the kind of kiss, that tries to make up for so many things, most of which are things that nothing can ever erase.

We pulled away from one another, arms tangled, breathing hard, like we were drowning before we kissed and had just come up to the surface.

"Stay," he whispered, his breath hot on my face. He kissed me again.

"Zach, I..."

I felt tears prick my eyes, and cursed myself for crying. I hated feeling so weak, like my heart was slowly bleeding out of me through my tears. Still, I felt the stupid things roll down my cheeks. He brushed them away.

"I know."

He put a calloused hand to my face, his thumb tracing my forehead and cheeks, my nose and eyes like he was trying to store up the memory for the long winter to come. His eyes traced my every feature, and it felt like those dark eyes were reading everything about me, like I was an open book.

It was in that second that I knew that he was going to let me go.

We stood there for what felt like forever- not kissing- just holding one another. But I felt the clock ticking, and I knew that all good moments had to end- especially that one. I stepped back, my heart heavy, and looked at him, one last time.

"Well Zach, I better get going."

He smirked again, but it was half-hearted and forced. I knew he was hurting as much as I was- his face, stoic only moments before, was so sad that I felt like I was breaking.

"Yeah. You wouldn't want to get caught in that two-in-the-morning sidewalk traffic, right?"

I chuckled, turning around and opening the door, the smell of fresh air and freedom filling my lungs. I heard the crickets chirping, the distant sound of the highway, and all of the other night sounds mixing together to create a symphony like none other. I turned back around to Zach and, in the moonlight, his haggard face looked softer, somehow. Like he was infinitely younger and just... Happier.

I was getting ready to turn back toward the door when he said "Wait a second." He bent down to the duffel bag that he had brought, and I felt a pang of guilt at the sight of it. He rummaged through it for a couple of seconds, finally pulling something out. It took me a few seconds for my tired brain to register what it was.

"Zach... No. I am _not_ taking your jacket with me. And besides, when did you take it anyway? It's just been in my room this whole time."

He walked over to me and slung it around my shoulders. It was soft and warm, the way it always was, and even though it had been sitting in my closet for weeks -untouched and unworn- it smelled like good things, like Zach's soap and evergreen trees.

Zach grinned, and it was real this time, not forced or anything. He stepped back and pointed to himself, his grin widening. "Spy."

I sighed and shook my head, threading my arms through the jacket. I forgot how comfy it was.

"And besides, I thought that if you were going somewhere cold, you might want an extra jacket..." He trailed off, his eyes straying to mine. I knew what he was trying to do; he was trying to get me to admit where I was going. It was a sad, not very subtle try, but it was a try, nonetheless. I smiled sadly.

"It might get cold there, but not very often," I said, glancing outside, thinking about how I needed to get going.

"Well, you'll just have it in case," he said. He saw where I was looking, and the look in his eyes made me want to cry all over again.

"I guess this is it," I said.

"I guess so," he said. The moment felt awkward all of a sudden.

I stepped forward to hug him and he slipped his arms around me easily, like it was something he had been doing his whole life. I breathed him in one last time, and finally let him go.

I bent down and picket up my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder. I turned back to the door, ready to walk away.

"Gallagher Girl, wait a second."

I huffed impatiently, turning around. "Yeah?"

"Don't you think that it would be good if, I don't know..."

"What, Zach?"

He ran a hand through his hair, his smirk back on his face full-blast. "I thought that it would be good if it looked like you overpowered me or something, you know? Like I tried to get you to stay, but I couldn't because you knocked me out."

I laughed, but not too loudly, because we still had the school's security measures to worry about. "So you want to look like the failed hero who was overpowered by a girl?"

He grinned, putting his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. But it would be okay, because I would have been beat up by _the_ Gallagher Girl."

I rolled my eyes, picking a Napotine patch out of my pocket and walking toward him. "Fine. How do you want to be 'overpowered'?"

He lay down on the ground, rearranging himself to look like he had simply fallen instead of what had really happened. "Like this. Just slap the patch on my forehead and we're good to go."

I felt kind of stupid, leaning down to out a Napotine patch on a completely conscious person. But I could see the reason in his thinking; if it had looked like I had just left without him doing something about it, there would be suspicions from everyone- my roommates, my mother, even the Gallagher Academy School board and the CIA. So at least, in this way, he was a victim in this situation.

I tried not to think about the fact that I would seem like an even worse villain than before, but when you're running away form the safest place on earth with a bunch of blood-thirsty terrorists nipping at your heels, there's not many more things that can make you seem like a crazier, more evil person.

His eyelids started to droop, his face looking sleepier and sleepier. He looked so vulnerable as he said, "Cammie, promise you'll come back. Please, just promise me that."

I hesitated, looking at the open door once again. There was a whole wide world out there, full of people that wanted to hurt me for reasons I may not ever know, people who might lock me up in a random warehouse, never to be seen again, or might even kill me, even though Zach's mother, one of the main people who wanted me, said that they wanted me alive.

Nothing was certain. Nothing ever would be again.

Still, I couldn't say that I'd never come back. If I said it out loud, that would be making the possibility of my not returning real; I didn't want it to be.

So I did what a spy does best; I lied.

"I promise, Zach. I'll come back."

"Good," he said. He closed his dark eyes, his face peaceful.

I turned away from him, walking to the door and placing my hand on the knob to close it. But before I did, I heard a quiet whisper, so quiet that I almost didn't hear it.

"Be careful Gallagher Girl."

I shut the door behind me, the words sinking into my heart as I took a deep breath and ran into the night.

***X***

**Okay, I lied earlier- I actually have to make the first chapter into three. So yeah.**

**Sorry to drag things out here. I guess I just have a tendency to write really long chapters.**

**Anyways, thanks for the reviews guys! Ten reviews for one chapter (a first one, at that) is really good. Thanks so much!**

**On that note... Please review? **


	3. My Vanishing Act

**Hi. Chapter three.  
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**Disclaimer-** **I'm too tired to think of a smart way to** **disclaim this book series. So I'm just gonna be lazy and say that I don't own the Gallagher Girls books, which is the truth.  
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***X***

Chapter Three

Cameron

The fact that there was no pedestrian and/or car traffic on the road to Roseville was no surprise. It was a good non-surprise, one that I definitely needed, and I was grateful for it.

The night was cloudless, the moon my light in the dark night. The grasses in the open fields that were owned by the old farmers who lived in Roseville swayed peacefully, the trees along the side of the road rustling softly.

When I was a kid, I remember my dad taking me on a lot of 'nature' walks (which were just mostly walks in the park). He grew up in Nebraska, which is mostly farmland, and thus, there was a lot of nature for him to learn to love. This was back when we lived in D.C., and even though there wasn't much nature there, there were always the trees, which D.C. had plenty of. I remember one walk in particular; I was only six, and it was the middle of summer. The air was balmy but there was a breeze, and my dad and I went on a walk right as evening became to creep in, when the fireflies were just coming out and the sun was just about to fully set. We went the the park, as we always did, but something about that night seemed special, magical. Maybe it was the breeze which, even though it was in the middle of the city, smelled like summer and flowers. Maybe it was the fireflies, which were lighting up the sky like thousands of stars that had fallen from the heavens.

In any case, it was the kind of night to remember, one that I dream about constantly. Whenever I think about it, my heart aches for the dad that I'll never have again.

Still, there was a best part to that night, something that makes me long it even more.

It was when my dad sat me on a bench in the middle of a group of trees. It was only us, everyone else either by the playground or just not in the park, so it was quiet, so quiet that even the normal sounds of the city couldn't get into our group of trees. We sat there for a little while, but I was starting to get antsy- even at the age of six, I was, as Zach had said in the elevator so long before my running away, fidgety. I had grabbed my dad's hand, tugging on it, saying that I wanted to go someplace else, but he just sat there, head tilted up to the dark canopy of trees above us.

He gestured for me to sit beside him again, and I did, grudgingly so. He put a strong, calloused hand on my little shoulder, and whispered in an awed voice, "Do you hear that Cammie?"

I looked up and around me, suddenly interested in what he was talking about. "Hear what?"

"Listen. You hear that rustling sound, like clapping?"

"Yeah..."

"Well Cammie," he took my hand, his so much bigger than my little one, "That's the sound of the wind."

"But that's impossible," I said incredulously. "The wind doesn't make any sound. It's just air currents."

"Yeah," he smiled, "But the leaves rustling in the trees... That's the sound of the wind. It's the wind's voice."

I listened with new ears, my eyes widening. It was the simplest of sounds, the kind that you hear every day, but never really notice. On that night though, it became an enchanted sound to me, like it was actually words being whispered instead of just the swishing of leaves.

I remembered that night as I was walking to Roseville, and I stopped for a second to listen to the wind. It seemed to be saying the same thing that I had been hearing for weeks... _Run_, the wind seemed to say._ Run and never look back._

*x*

Roseville was just as dead as the road leading to it. The sound of silence seemed to echo in the barren downtown, the usually lit-up gazebo dark, the window shops that were always bright and full of color darkened by the cloak of night. The only light in the whole square was coming from a single street lamp.

Needless to say, it was somewhat creepy.

I made my way through the square to the park, which led to the residential area. As I passed the park, I thought about Josh, as I always did when I came to Roseville. He was, after all, many things for me- my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first love. But still, as I passed the park, I didn't feel the usual ache I always seemed to when I thought of Josh. Maybe it was because I had another boy in my life (one who was infinitely more confusing) or maybe it was because my mind was simply on other things. I didn't stop to ponder any of this stuff though- I just kept moving.

Finally, I was at my destination- Josh's street.

I had studied the maps of Roseville on the internet earlier, trying to decide what neighborhoods would be best to steal a car from. Even though Roseville was small, there were three main sections, as there are in all towns- the wealthy, the middle-class, the poor. And, as a spy, it's always best to go for the middle-class, mostly because they are wealthy enough to rob, but not wealthy enough to think that they're going to be robbed. Sadly, Josh's family fit perfectly into this area- not wealthy enough to have security cameras, but not poor enough to not have any cars. Right... Well, in the middle.

I walked up and down the street for a little while, marveling at how it hadn't changed a bit since Josh and I had broken up. There were still little white picket fences everywhere and porch swings, perfectly moved lawns and cars that needed a paint job. All the while, I looked at each car carefully, seeing how old they were (well, _guessing_ is a better word for what I was doing) and what kind of car they were.

Finally, after about thirty minutes of searching, I found the perfect one.

It was black and a Toyota, was tiny and, conveniently, unlocked. I climbed in and searched the car quickly, seeing if there was an extra key lying around. As I searched the car, I saw that it was definitely a girl's car- all over the passenger and back seats were things like pink scarves and shoes, lipsticks and half-empty perfume bottles. Clothes were strewn all around, most of which had labels all over them, some of which I actually stuffed into my backpack (if I'm going to steal the car, I might as well use the disguises that are unknowingly provided).

Now, before I go any further, I'm going to go ahead and say now that I'm not proud of the fact that I had to steal a car. Before I ran away, I had never really done anything that was illegal. Oh sure, I have practiced some torture and fighting techniques that were prohibited by the Geneva Convention, but I was instructed to do those things by teachers who are allowed to teach us that kind of stuff; but still, I had never stolen anything before that moment.

Still, desperate times call for desperate measures. I would definitely could that time as desperate.

Finally, I found what I was looking for; a spare key, tucked safely in between the back seats. I sat back into the front seat, shutting the door quietly and sticking the key in the ignition. The engine purred softly, the air conditioner kicking on automatically. I was about the put the car into gear when I noticed something on the dashboard, something that I had missed on my search in the car...

It was a picture.

I leaned forward and grabbed it, and even though I had not idea whose car it was before I got in, I somehow knew who was going to be.

It was Josh. And DeeDee.

It was a picture of them at the beach, probably somewhere on the coast of Maryland or something. They were both in bathing suits- Josh's traditional swimming shorts, DeeDee's a pink one-piece-and they were hugging one another, which made me know that the picture was recent. Neither of them really looked any different from when I had known them two years before, but they both looked older. Deedee's hair was longer, and Josh was taller and, if it was even possible, even more handsome than that night at the football field.

They were happy.

I was dimly aware of the fact that I should have been sad about that, also about the fact that I was stealing DeeDee's car, but I was too tired to really pay attention to either fact.

So instead of thinking about the boy I left behind, the life that I could have had but never will, I put the car into gear and drove.

***X***

**Blaah. Crappy chapter. Sorry guys.**

**Review?**


	4. His Old Man

**Okay, I have an excuse for not updating. Here it is- I have actually written about four chapters over the last couple of weeks, but they all sucked. I'm talking about awful, horrible, completely dreadful work here; I bet that _Twilight_ was even more well-written than the stuff I have written (well, probably not, but you never know).**

**So , yeah. The new (and MUCH improved) chapter four.**

**Disclaimer- I get it, I don't own it. Now, on with the story!**

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><p><span>Chapter Four<span>

Zachary

I've woken up to a lot of stuff over the years- gunshots, fistfights, missiles... You name it, it has probably happened to me.

Still, having an angry Italian man scream obscenities in my face at four in the morning is a new one for me.

_"Scendere del mio piano cazzo ti stronzo. La mia squadra e ho bisogno di iniziare il nostro lavoro cazzo sulla colazione cazzo!"_

If you don't know Italian, you shouldn't look that up.

I opened my eyes, the lights instantly burning them. It took me a second for me to realize where I was, but when it did, it felt like a ton on bricks was being dumped on me. The whole night came back to me in a flood of memories and moments- finding out about_ her_ leaving, packing a bag, following her...

I decided that I should have just ignored the angry Italian man and just kept sleeping. It would have made my life a whole hell of a lot easier, at least for a few minuets.

I sat up, my head pounding. Cammie may not have knocked me out, but it sure felt like she did.

_"Mr. Goode!"_

When he said my last name (or, at least, my mother's last name) I looked up at the guy. His face was red and fleshy, and he was all sweaty and smelled like cigars. _This_ was the guy who made the best waffles I'd ever eaten? He had seriously worked at the White House?

Man. They must have had pretty shitty standards or something.

"Sorry about passing out on your floor here, Luigi. I kind of have problems with this kind of stuff." I made a drinking motion with my hand, which, truthfully, wouldn't really explain why I was passed out on his floor (or why I would use that kind of excuse to get out of a hairy situation when I was already on thin ice with that school) but I didn't really care.

He looked at me like I was crazy, which I don't blame him for. "My name is NOT Luigi!" He said, switching to English. "It's Michael! And furthermore, if you do not get off of my floor right now, I'm going to..."

He switched back to Italian again and continued to say things that would make the ears of small children bleed. I stood up and felt like an old man, I was so sore.

"Chill, Luigi. I'm going."

I patted him on the shoulder, throwing him a smirk for good measure, and bent down to pick up my duffel bag. It felt lighter than the night before, which wasn't a surprise. The jacket that I had given to Cam was leather, so it was fairly heavy.

Luigi kept yelling at me as I walked through the huge kitchen, which, in the light of day, was much less creepy looking, but I ignored him. I walked through doorways and hallways, not really caring about whether or not I was seen, making my way through the Grand Hall and up the Grand Staircase (I guess having government money and connections makes everything suddenly Grand and worthy of extra capitalization), past the Grand Suites full of Grand Future Spies and to my Not-so-Grand temporary room, which used to be a janitor closet.

I opened the door to said crappy room, cringing as the door squeaked in protest. The room was dark and, despite the fact that the staff had thoroughly cleaned it out, still smelled of cleaning supplies. I tripped about ten times as I made my way to my bed, which was just about as squeaky as the door and the floorboards, but I didn't really care.

I didn't really care about much of anything by then, because the only thing I cared about was on her way to God-knows-where, making her way in the big, bad world.

Without me.

I know I sounded like a pansy, but I didn't really care about that, either.

I closed my eyes, my head still pounding, and fell asleep thinking only about _her_, something that I could never really stop doing no matter how hard I tried.

ooo

When I woke up three hours later, I expected sirens. Dramatic lights, like the night of the dance the year before. Guards and SWAT team members banging down my door, bulletproof vests on, guns loaded and at the ready. Screaming and multiple wounds from her roommates, expulsion from the school I don't even officially go to, and a lifetime of torture and a cozy little CIA cell in the middle of Siberia.

But I didn't get any of that. Instead, just... Silence.

I did what I had been doing for the past week- woke up, went for a run in the woods, and got dressed, trying not to hate my life or myself the entire time. I went to the classes that I was forced to attend, looking for Cammie's roommates the whole time but not seeing a single one. I thought and ruled out many options, some of which included food poisoning and deadly diseases, but the most likely one was this- extra-strength Napotine patches. At all of the meals, all of which were ones that I spent alone, I saw Mrs. Morgan looking around for them, but she didn't ask me- or anyone else- about them. Maybe she thought that there was nothing to worry about- after all, no alarms had gone off, no warnings or notifications from the security department or from Cammie's roommates. Truthfully though, she was doing exactly what I was- pretending that nothing was wrong, convincing herself that there was nothing wrong, just so it would seem like there was really nothing wrong.

Still, I knew the truth, a truth that haunted me that entire day- that she was gone, and probably would be forever.

ooo

When I was a kid, there weren't many people I looked up to. I never knew my dad- I had never met him, never heard of him from my mother, never even knew his name- and my mother was hardly a model of good and right behavior, for ovbious reasons. The other adults in the Circle were pretty much carbon-copies of my mother, only less smart, and a little bit less evil. I had an older sister, Emma, but it's hard to look up to girls when you're a kid. They always worry about stupid things, like makeup and clothes and boys. Granted, she only cared about a fraction of that stuff, compared to other girls I had met in my seventeen years, but she still wasn't what I was looking for in a role model.

Then Joe Solomon joined my mother's section of the Circle when I was eight.

I had somehow known from the start that he wasn't _all_ bad, not like the other men in Circle. He was a good guy, I knew that from the start.

He didn't look down on me or Emma, didn't treat us like dirt like everyone else did, and actually spent time with us. He taught us other languages (he taught Emma Russian, a bit of Greek, and Farsi, while he taught me the 'easy stuff', like German and French) and simple math skills, things kids years younger than us already knew how to do, since they were in school and we weren't (my mother, whose name is Minna, just for future reference, thought that public school was useless in the life of a 'spy'). He gave us the basics on espionage, things that I used every day at Blackthorne, and probably will use for the rest of my life. He played with us (cowboys and Indians with me, Barbies with Emma, even though it pained him greatly, you could tell) and I knew that he loved us, even though he couldn't say so.

He was the father Emma and I have never had, the kind of guy that makes it so entirely easy to look up to, it's slightly ridiculous.

He left our section of the Circle (the Circle of Cavan is made up of sections of spies, and Minna, my mother, ran one of them, all by herself) when I was fourteen. I will say that his leaving made both Emma and I sad, heartbroken, almost. Right after he left, Emma did too. But, unlike with Emma, I had no idea where Joe Solomon was going (Emma, despite our mother's murderous protests, joined the CIA). I saw him years later, though, when I went on a little mission in D.C. He was different, I could tell- he wasn't as playful, or as nice, as he had been when I was a kid. Still, he was Joe Solomon, my sort-of-dad.

Because of this, I knew that I should have visited him in the infirmary earlier than that day. I should have been there every day, talking to him, telling him everything that I was thinking, like I used to. I should have been there to tell him that it will be okay, even if he can't hear me, and to just ask him to wake up.

But I'm a coward, in case you haven't already figured out, and I will say that I was scared to see nothing but a shell of a man in the place of Joe Solomon.

Still, I knew that it was time. So I made my way through the labyrinth of the Gallagher Academy, passing through halls and going through elevators, talking to mechanical voices and telling guards my reasons for going to the infirmary. Finally, after what felt like an hour of going through security, I got to the infirmary.

The espionage-world-renowned Gallagher Academy infirmary is as you would expect it to be- sterile and shiny as hell, everything reflecting back at you like a freaky hospital-themed house of mirrors. There were a few doctors and nurses walking around, drinking coffee (even though it was four in the afternoon) and talking in every language imaginable. All those people, just for one patient.

They waved at me, big smiles on their faces, like seeing past patients (or a new person) in that place was the joy of their lives. I smiled back and waved a little, but it felt forced. Everything did, by then.

Mr. Solomon's room, when I got there, was cold, almost freezing. It was as clean and sterile as the rest of the hospital, a single bed and two chairs in the middle of the white, open space. Nothing about it was that surprising, except for the fact that I wasn't the only one with the idea to visit Joe Solomon.

She looked so much like Cammie that I almost forgot the night before. She was sitting in one of the chairs, face down on the bed, dark hair splayed around her as she held Joe's hand and cried. I approached carefully, wondering if my exhausted mind was hallucinating- from the back, they looked exactly the same. Same hair, same height, same everything.

Then she looked up, and reality have me a sucker punch in the gut.

"Oh, Mrs. Morgan... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

Professional demeanor gone, she sat up and wiped the tears away. "Don't apologize, Zachary. You actually have more of a right to be here than I do."

The comment puzzled me, but I decided to look past it. I sat in the chair on the other side of the bed, my steps quiet but seeming to be amplified in the space.

We both sat there, looking at the broken man in the bed. I hadn't seen him in about a week and a half, but he didn't look much better than he did the day I dragged him out of the caves, bleeding and burnt and screaming. I closed my eyes, erasing the memory, and just tried to take in the aliveness of my friend.

They had taken off his bandages, and it was truly a gruesome sight. He was scarred and burnt and bruised, his face bearing the resemblance of roadkill. I swallowed, trying not to let it get to me too badly.

After a minute of halfway awkward silence, I asked the million-dollar-question. "So, how's he doing?"

"Well, he's definitely not improving, but he's not getting any worse, they say. Normally, this would be a time to be worried about brain damage, but his eyes have been moving around a little, which is a very, very good sign." She sighed deeply, running a hand through her hair, a motion that was very much like Cammie. "All we can do now is... Hope."

That was dangerous enough, as it is. Hope is too much sometimes.

I sat there for a while, thinking about Cammie's question on the rooftop that day- what if he never wakes up? What then?

I sighed deeply, sadness sinking into my heart.

"What if he never wakes up?"

She looked up at me, her expression a bit surprised, as if she had never considered the idea. "I don't know."

We sat there for a while longer, not saying anything more. I could have said something about Cammie, hinted at her being gone, but I didn't. Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I just couldn't bring up anything else that was sad in that room, which was depressing enough, and I couldn't do that to Mrs. Morgan, not while she was in that state- she would find out soon enough.

She left about ten minutes later, giving his hand a squeeze and saying that she would be back later. She looked at me and gave me a ghost of a smile, then left.

The room seemed even more empty and huge, when it was just Joe and me. I leaned forward, propping my elbows on the soft bed.

"Hey Joe. How you doin'?"

He didn't answer. For ovbious reasons.

This felt so awkward, it was ridiculous.

"Okay, so... I'm going to go now." I stood up a little too quickly and walked to the end of the bed. "Get better, old man."

And that was it.

ooo

I went running again that night after dinner. Maybe it was because I just wanted to be in better shape, or maybe, most likely, I just wanted to be out of that place.

Cammie's roommates hadn't woken up that day. Not even a peep. I was sure, by then, that she had done something to make sure of that.

The night was quiet and breezy. The winds in the trees made the leaves rustle quietly. I looked up at that endless sky, at all of those billions of stars, and wondered where she was right then.

* * *

><p><strong>That still sucked, but whatever.<strong>

**By the way, I won't load the next chappie until I get to thirty-seven reviews. Okay? Okay.  
><strong>

**Review?**


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